Aigio, Greece: Poverty, misery and houses burnt ‘by accident’

On November 3rd in Aigio, a town northeast of Patras, unknown scumbags (most likely neo-Nazis) burned down the homes of tens of immigrants. Shortly before 2am, some slums in Farazouli and Platonos streets, known as ‘Rodopoulou shacks’ were wrapped in flames. Nearly 30 immigrants lived there (who ironically are reported to have documents). The fire burned completely these shacks. At least three immigrant residents suffered burns and were transferred to the town’s hospital. Now dozens of immigrants have been left homeless, without food, and several of them with very little clothing, etc. Several local residents offered help to them. The following text was distributed by anarchists in regard to the incendiary attack.
‘ Let’s explain things from the beginning. On May 11th, organized fascists threw a homemade bomb (made from camping gas canisters) into a shack rented by Pakistani immigrants near the sports ground in the city of Aigio. The fascists did not manage to set fire to the shack, but the neighbourhood and the immigrants were terrified by the explosion. This was the second attack against immigrants within 3 weeks. In addition, the fascists spread leaflets with the logo of Chrissi Avgi (Golden Dawn) to make their presence known in the area.

After all of this, it is obvious who set the fire that burnt the same house on the night of November 3rd. It was no accident (a few days before the fire, a flare was also thrown into the courtyard of the house), but the third fascist attack. These people are now sleeping in the courtyard of the burnt home; their only means of protection against the cold are blankets and clothes donated by some of us, citizens in solidarity.

For us, solidarity with immigrants is not a question of humanity. It is a matter of social–class character; solidarity that is applied among the oppressed and the poor, within a social condition that imposes silence, consent to the plans of the State, slander of all social resistance by the political system through the mass media.

Increasingly there are those who understand that the rhetoric of “salvation of the fatherland” and “national unity” has the sole purpose of hiding the fact that the State and every government in power (whether one of cooperation, “national salvation” or whatever they want to call it) were, are and will always be working to serve the ends of employers. The only “national” mission is the rescue of banks, the restoration of business profitability and the carrying out of experiments for the most brutal exploitation of workers by both Greek and foreign bosses. At the end of the day, in Greece there is the realization of a political–economic experiment, which is used by the powerful also as a threat to other workers in Europe who are “naughty” and “extravagant”. Bosses, while they make this attack, measure the reactions, forces and tactics, now that the game is open to the entire planet.

But it’s not necessary to go very far to see this. The violent impoverishment imposed on the workers of the country, along with privatization, makes the figure of the poor worker, of the unemployed and the poor pensioner increasingly resemble the figure of the immigrant. The tens of thousands of poor households without electricity, the starvation wages, one million jobless persons, the theft through taxation, the poll taxes, the police state, do not allow misinterpretations. We must resist every attempt by those “from above” to persuade us that we share the same interests with them. We should uproot every nationalist vision in which our class brothers and sisters — the immigrants — are presented as enemies.

Faced with all these facts, the State and the dominance impose a generalized social apathy, individualization, the war of “all against all”, social cannibalism, submission and predetermined social roles. Through our daily action, we “from below” must create communities of struggle that promote the values of resistance, self-organization and solidarity.

For our struggle is not in the hands of “experts” or the lackeys of bosses. Through neighbourhood and square assemblies of unemployed, workers, immigrants, university and secondary school students, and pensioners, we must connect and interact through self-organization, developing struggles both in form and context. Our weapons are strikes, occupations, demonstrations. Social denial of payments “from below”; because we refuse to pay for their crisis, as we refuse to pay for social goods that are ours.

Resistance, solidarity and self-organization everywhere
Common struggles between locals and immigrants
Social and class solidarity against fear, racism and social cannibalism
Expel the fascists and Capital ’
source: athens.indymedia.org
more photos here